Eric Gregg, shown here at a city council meeting last summer wherein the STORM Team (part of which was Bosco Watson, in back of Gregg) was honored, resigned his position July 8 as the city’s mayor, ostensibly because he had been appointed to a state job and under statute, couldn’t hold both positions. However, he went three months holding both jobs, and, documents indicate, employment that he also should not have been holding. The resignation also came after multiple articles in Disclosure revealed his shocking behavior in the final weeks of his term as mayor.
HARRISBURG—Less than a week after Disclosure’s July Special Edition appeared questioning Eric Gregg’s increasingly-bizarre behavior surrounding senate scrutiny of his state job, Gregg resigned his post as mayor of Harrisburg, effective July 8.
Gregg was appointed to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board (parole) April 26, but continued to hold the position of mayor, as well as other positions of employment, in direct violation if Illinois law, which states that a PRB member “shall not hold any other salaried public office, whether elective or appointive, nor any other office or position of profit, nor engage in any other business, employment or vocation.”
Gregg is receiving an annual compensation on the board of $85,886, but according to available records, he is still holding a number of jobs or receives income from associations with businesses operating in the state of Illinois…in violation of the state statute.
The scrutiny by state senators as outlined in the July Special Edition continues. But now, due to Gregg’s irresponsible behavior in his final days in office, he is, sources say, under a different kind of investigation—one that could cost him more than his state job.
Timeline: Too long
The timeline of Eric Gregg’s last days in office actually began with the day he was appointed to the PRB in April.
However, the timeline was too long, and Gregg called too much attention to himself in the interim, by behaving like a petulant, attention-grubbing and put-upon naïf.
In the days preceding release of the issue of Disclosure in which it was revealed that State Senate members were examining him for statutory violations, as well as a revealing story appearing about how Gregg used state resources in an attempt to get Publisher Jack Howser’s wife arrested on bogus “threats” against him, Gregg himself issued veiled threats against the publication and “those who do associate with them,” stating that he would “bring them to their knees.”
This declaration occurred on June 28.
It so happened that on that same day, Senator Tim Bivins (R-45), who is on the executive appointments committee that selects gubernatorial appointments to the state’s various boards, had submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the city of Harrisburg for Gregg’s compensation as mayor.
Bivins had already obtained Gregg’s application—a “State Resumé”—from the senate appointments committee he was on.
Disclosure staffer Jerome Panozzo FOIA’d for the resumé, and received it on June 30 via electronic mail.
And at that moment, the pressure was on for Gregg.
Lies on his resumé
An examination of the resumé was startling, in that it was full of blatant lies at the time Gregg signed it: May 20, 2012.
Right off the bat, Gregg claimed only one “current employment” on that date: Occupational Performance & Rehab, based in Marion. He claimed to be a marketing director, and stated he’d been with the company from 2010 to the present time.
No other employment was mentioned…although Gregg had it.
He came close, however: Under “experience” (indicating past jobs, not current), Gregg had listed MidAmerican Energy Services, which provides electricity supply in deregulated markets in the U.S.
In a later section of the resumé, a question posed to the applicant states “List the name of any entity doing business in the State of Illinois from which income in excess of $1,200 was derived during the preceding calendar year other than for professional services and the title of description of any position held in that entity.”
Gregg listed “none.”
Bivins clarified for Disclosure that “preceding calendar year” meant January to December of 2011.
Gregg was most assuredly employed by MidAmerican during that time frame, because had he not been, he wouldn’t have been sued in Saline County circuit court civilly by a co-worker at MidAmerican, LuAnn Walker Maddox.
Alleged to have ended partnership illegally
In this case, filed November 5, 2012, Walker filed a complaint that included a count of Winding Up of Partnership Business and a second count of Breach of Oral Contract.
The suit states that Walker, during November 2008, entered into an oral agreement with Gregg whereby they would form an association to carry on a business venture for profit.
This “business” was as representatives of MidAmerican, and an established sales person can bring in another sales person to help him and thus will receive a portion of commissions, although the second sales person will receive a portion of her sales as well; much like a pyramid-based business, MidAmerican pays better if a representative has other representatives under him or her, and bringing in more sales people is encouraged.
Court documents show that pursuant to the terms of an oral agreement they entered into, Gregg and Walker operated the “business venture” from approximately November of 2008 to February 27, 2012.
On or about that February date, the documents show, Gregg stated to Walker his decision that “the ongoing business venture should not continue, and further indicated that he no longer wished to conduct an ongoing business venture with” Walker.
Based on this, the “business venture” ceased.
However, pursuant to Illinois law (805 ILCS 206), “an association of two or more persons to carry on as co-owners of a business for profit is a partnership; a partner is dissociated from a partnership when the partnership’s having notice of the partner’s express will to withdraw as a partner, and after dissolution, a partner who has not wrongfully dissociated may participate in winding up the partnership’s business.”
Alleged to have thieved profits
Walker claims she was at all times in compliance with the terms of the oral agreement they’d entered into in 2008.
She states that the dissolution of the partnership was caused solely by Gregg’s actions, in direct contravention of the 2008 oral agreement. Specifically, she stated, Gregg refused to divide the profits of the ongoing business venture equally between the two.
Due to the dissolution of the partnership, Walker was seeing to wind up the affairs and seek a final settlement of accounts between them pursuant to the law.
The commissions, addressed in the Breach of Contract claim, were deposited into an account owned by the partnership at Banterra Bank, and were to be equally shared between the two.
However, Walker’s suit notes, from approximately January 1, 2012, to the filing date (November of that same year), Gregg has been in “material breach of the oral agreement by the following courses of conduct”:
Refusing to share equally with Walker the profits they earned during the duration of the partnership;
Depositing some of the commissions into his own personal account;
Wrongfully dissociating himself from the partnership, and
Retaining commissions since the split even though the accounts are property of the partnership.
Alleged to have continued to work in 2012
Walker claims she was damaged by the breach in an amount equal to 50 percent of the profits earned from November 2008 to Feb. 27, 2012.
She also claimed she was damaged in an amount equal to 100 percent of profits received by Gregg on or after Feb. 28, 2012, as apparently he continued in the pursuit of the business venture.
She is seeking, under the breach of contract count, numbers the equivalent of the above, attorneys fees and costs of the suit, and any and all other relief the court deems just.
A third count is basically a plea for collection on money Walker loaned to Gregg.
Under Breach of Oral Contract—Money Loaned, Walker claims that on or about December 15, 2009, Walker “entered into an oral agreement” to loan Gregg a thousand dollars, and paid him with a personal check.
As of the November 2012 filing date, he had failed to repay the loan.
She included it as Count 3 and is seeking repayment, as well as collection (court) costs.
Answers that laws don’t apply to him
Gregg answered the suit on April 23, 2013.
In his answer, he admits that they discussed a possible association on a business venture that he’d already had in place, as long as she performed as expected, and that the expectation of payment for each person was totally dependent upon their production and performance.
Gregg claims that there was no joint business venture, but that he continued his operations as he had prior to Walker ever being involved, telling her he would no longer involve her in any of his operations.
As such, he believes the statutes (laws) cited weren’t applicable.
On the loan, Gregg said that there was never a “demand for payment” of the loan…despite the fact that the check clearly states “loan,” and not “gift,” in the memo line.
Interestingly, in Walker’s response to Gregg’s response, she stated that she had submitted a demand letter for repayment of the loan, and attached it to her response.
Employed during the previous calendar year
While all this will be hashed out in civil court in Saline County, one fact is glaringly obvious throughout it:
During the preceding calendar year of the lawsuit (January-December 2011), Eric Gregg clearly held employment with “an entity doing business in the state of Illinois.” Whether the income was in excess of $1,200 or not remains unknown…although several children living with him in a big house might necessitate an income of more than $1,200 annually.
The presence of the lawsuit, and the timeline stated clearly through court filed documents and undisputed by Gregg, shows that he did indeed lie on his application when he answered “none” to the question of the income.
But the situation with Walker isn’t the only evidence of this subterfuge Gregg perpetrated upon the citizens of the state of Illinois when he fraudulently represented himself on the application.
Contract with schools
Disclosure was able to obtain via FOIA a contract Gregg had created with the Harrisburg school system…an entity for which his wife is employed as a teacher’s aide at the Middle School.
The contract clearly shows that on June 28, 2011, Harrisburg schools entered into a contract with MidAmerican Energy to be their retail electric supplier at better-than-market rates.
Representing MidAmerican, as shown on the contract, was Eric Gregg.
A screencap of the July 15 reference to Eric Gregg’s radio show. The local radio station, WEBQ, offers two deals to those who want a show on their station: The person sells ads and keeps the proceeds, or the station sells ads and pays a portion to the person who has the show. Either way, it’s another form of employment Gregg has and has had for more than a year, and in violation of statute 730 ILCS 3-3-1 pertaining to the Prisoner Review Board.
The contract was valid from October 2011 to October 2014…meaning that Gregg would be paid a commission during pay periods for this three-year contract. That means that Gregg is, as of this writing, collecting pay…in violation of statutes (laws), and in opposition to what he signed on his resumé for employment with the state when he, again, wrote “none” when asked if he received income in excess of $1,200 with any entity doing business in the state of Illinois in the previous calendar year.
Of course, Gregg could make the argument that he wasn’t making that much money. However, now there is one known “business partnership” which effectively was making enough money that LuAnn Walker wanted some of it back; the contract with the school system; and the stated employment with the rehab service in Marion.
But that’s not all.
Shown above is the page on the “Senate
Resume” document Eric Gregg signed May
20, 2012, when he offi cially submitted an
application to the Illinois Prisoner Review
Board. There have been at least two
statutory violations found in the document,
this being one of them, in violation of a
Secretary of State statute that pertains
to his contract, through MidAmerican
Energy, and the Harrisburg School system.
The school, however, isn’t the only statesupported
body Gregg has brokered a
deal with through MidAmerican; more
documents are yet to be FOIA’d.
Secretary of State statutory violation
The entry on page 1 of “Disclosure of Appointee Interest in State Contracts to be filed with the Secretary of State” states that pursuant to 5 ILCS 420/3A.30, upon appointment to a board, commission, authority or task force authorize or created by State law, a person must file with the Secretary of State a disclosure of all contracts the person, or his or her spouse or immediate family members living with the person, or his or her spouse or immediate family members living with the person, have a majority financial interest.
Shown above is the page on the “Senate Resume” document Eric Gregg signed May 20, 2012, when he officially submitted an application to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. There have been at least two statutory violations found in the document, this being one of them, in violation of a Secretary of State statute that pertains to his contract, through MidAmerican Energy, and the Harrisburg School system. The school, however, isn’t the only state-supported body Gregg has brokered a deal with through MidAmerican; more documents are yet to be FOIA’d.
Arguably, a school is a state entity, and a three-year energy contract between a school system and an energy retailer (Gregg) would fall under the definition of “a state contract.”
Further, the very contract itself represents a conflict of interest for Gregg to hold, since his wife works for the school system. But something like a conflict of interest, or even obeying the law, doesn’t seem to hold much import for Eric Gregg.
Under the specific Secretary of State disclosure document, Gregg placed the now-familiar “none” when asked “name of individual or entity contracting with the State of Illinois.”
A screenshot from Eric Gregg’s Facebook page on June 28, wherein he was promoting the utter rant he performed at what was supposed to have been a city council meeting on that date. Instead, he issued indirect, veiled threats to Disclosure, stating that he would “bring them to their knees…and anyone who associated with them.” Gregg did not use the name of the publication nor name the Howsers who own it. But despite the inability to spell or grasp correct use of the English language, Jeremy W. Smith brought it to undisputed light that it was Disclosure Gregg was talking about (see highlighted boxes), turning an indirect threat into a direct threat by proxy. The matter was reported to area law enforcement, by Disclosure, in early July.
Other employment Gregg has been confirmed to have had during the “previous calendar year” of 2011 is with the Saline County Industrial Commission, and with local radio station WEBQ, a once-a-week spot called Monday Mornings with the Mayor” from 7 to 8 a.m. each Monday.
Disclosure confirmed with WEBQ the way their programming works: a person may have a show on-air for a certain period of time, but they have to either sell advertising for the time slot, and keep the ad money (having done all the legwork of selling) or give the ad funds to the station, at which time the station cuts them a check for their work on-air.
Eric Gregg not only was in the studio and on-air, but he was also actually operating the small station during the time while on-air.
There is no indication that the deal made between the station with Eric Gregg is any different than any other person the station has made a deal with, including information given out during an inquiry by Disclosure in March of 2012.
“Monday Mornings with the (former) Mayor” has aired on each Monday since Gregg’s resignation July 8.
Whether Gregg was paid for those gigs or not is being examined by the senators interested in learning just how much money Gregg is making from various sources, in violation of the statute for holding a job on the PRB.
The penalty for lying on the Senate appointee resumé is stated next to the signature block.
“I understand that the penalty for willfully filing a false or incomplete statement shall be a fine not to exceed $1,000 or imprisonment in a penal institution other than the penitentiary not to exceed one year, or both fine and imprisonment.”
Since it’s a statutory violation, the local state’s attorney can (and should) file a charge against the one who falsified information on the document.
Saline County State’s Attorney Mike Henshaw hasn’t made a comment one way or the other on whether or not he would seek charges against Gregg for violating the statute if evidence of such violation were presented.
However, Henshaw isn’t one known to shirk his duties as prosecutor to charge alleged criminals if there’s adequate proof; Todd Fort, in 2010, is but one example of this.
Each of these pages bearing pdf images of the documents in question could be considered proof.
Intimidation reported
But that’s not all Gregg could be experiencing trouble over.
Due to the June 28 veiled threat Gregg made against Disclosure on videotape at city hall, as well as the multiple attempts at getting Angela Howser arrested by making false reports against her to state and local agencies prior to the threat, both Howsers made a report to law enforcement in early July about Gregg.
In the report, they included that he had intimated that he would “do what he could” to get their vendors shut down, this occurring on July 3, when the issue was distributed which contained the truth about Gregg’s off-the-chain psycho daughter, as well as his vendetta against Disclosure.
The Illinois law outlining “Intimidation” as it applies to public officials was quoted clearly in the July Special Edition of Disclosure, placed strategically beneath a photo of one of the publication’s first-ever interviews with the then-mayoral candidate:
A public official can be charged with Intimidation when, “with intent to cause another to perform or to omit the performance of any act, he communicates to another, directly or indirectly by any means, a threat to perform without lawful authority, taking action as a public official against anything, or withhold official action, or cause such action or withholding.”
Stating on June 28 that he would bring detractors “to their knees…and anyone who associates with them” was an indirect threat.
A Facebook post about the video in which Gregg made the threat, wherein a friend of Gregg’s put the word “disclosing” in quotations, made the threat a little more direct.
For Gregg to make statements to associates on July 3 that he would ensure Disclosure’s Harrisburg vendors would run into trouble that week also made the threat a little more direct.
The report to law enforcement was taken seriously and was forwarded to appropriate higher-level authorities.
Whether Henshaw—or someone outside his immediate jurisdiction, at a little higher level—will file a charge against Gregg over this statutory violation remains to be seen, as well.
A felony conviction on any one of the multiple violations would keep Gregg off the ballot in a couple of years if, as he said in a post-resignation interview with mainstream media (who are carefully overlooking the senate investigation into his violations), he chooses to expose Harrisburg to his brand of corrupt leadership again, and runs once more for mayor.
Used cancer as an excuse
Just a few days later, Disclosure learned that Gregg intended to announce his resignation effective July 8.
Gregg, in typical blame anyone but himself fashion, attributed his delay in turning the office over to the city’s finance commissioner, Ron Crank, on Crank’s battle with cancer.
Those who caught the inference were horrified that Gregg would put off his continual violation of the law regarding the PRB on a man who was undergoing intensive treatment for a brain tumor and couldn’t even attend to his duties as city councilman, let alone step up to be named temporary mayor.
In fact, any one of the commissioners could have been named mayor pro tem, as, after all, it is a temporary (tem) position.
This was just one of a series of questionable maneuvers Gregg was able to get by with once the decision to resign was reached.
Another was to resign at his house in the Dorris Heights area, unannounced, a half-hour before a scheduled city council meeting, where it had been previously stated that he was going to resign at 9 a.m.
Apparently Gregg hoped to thwart Disclosure being present and asking the hard questions, like just how many lies were placed on the application for the PRB job, as well as where missing money, which the city’s audit shows to be nearly a million dollars, has gone over the past year.
The appearance of Illinois governor Pat Quinn in Marion just a week later, after facts about Gregg’s subterfuge were still coming out and senate scrutiny was ongoing, raised more questions, as this seemed to be a previously-unplanned trip for the guv downstate. Whether Quinn made a hasty trip to Harrisburg to check on his latest appointee is but one of those questions.
Disclosure is still seeking those answers.